RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Republican Party is calling on UNC-TV to break its ties with host and columnist D.G. Martin.

Martin is the longtime host of the popular "NC Bookwatch" program on the statewide public television station. He's also a longtime political columnist whose left-leaning columns appear weekly in publications around the state. The two are separate ventures.

In his most recent column, Martin seems to compare supporters of Republican legislative leaders to apologists for the recently ousted Egyptian government and for the Nazi regime in Germany.

The column in question is titled "Egypt, Nazi Germany, and North Carolina," datelined July 29.